Image information is typically much more difficult to process than alphanumeric information. For example, images, unlike alphanumeric text, typically require a long periods of time to access, process, store, retrieve, and distribute, because of the size and internal complexity of the image information. Also, unlike alphanumeric text, images are typically shared by many users as a non-divisible unit of information, in that in most instances users must view an image in its entirety. As a result of these characteristics of image information, evolving information systems strive to reduce the access time for a user to go from one image display to another, and to permit the unitary usage of image information in a heterogeneous distributed environment.
Many different techniques are known in the art for reducing the time required to process image information in what typically encompasses long duration operations. One approach is to increase the transmission capability of the image information system. Another technique is to distribute the image processing computations.
In known information image systems, protocols or pre specified procedures are provided to users of the system, for permitting them to manipulate the image information. For example, in medical imaging systems, physicians may be provided a predetermined diagnostic protocol for examining medical images. As another example, protocols have been developed for office procedures, such as for the circulation of a document from one office to another. Also, it is recognized that when image information is used in a heterogeneous distributed environment, one must insure operational integrity, operational consistency, synchronization, and so forth.
There is an ever expanding use for image information systems as advances are made in hardware and software technology. For example, image information systems are now included in application areas such as geographical information systems (GIS), office automation systems (OA), medical picture archiving and communications systems (PACS), computer-aided designs systems (CAD), computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), computer-aided engineering (CAE), education and training, robotics, multimedia information systems, and scientific databases systems (SBD). It is known in the art that such systems must be improved by decreasing the image delivery time, increasing the accessibility to a desired image associated information, and generally increasing the responsiveness, accuracy, and user friendliness of such systems.
Present research for improving image information systems is centered on content-based indexing, data modeling, tertiary storage structure, and query-by-content, amongst other techniques. Present systems perform image data processing operations such as retrieval, enhancement, transmission, and so forth, by responding to explicit requests from users. Present image information systems are incapable of coding image data for automatically responding to a users real time use of the image data.
The present inventors recognize that image information should be made "intelligent", in order to permit the image data to actively participate in the particular application the image data is be used at a given time. For example, in medical applications, subsequent to examining nuclear images of a patient's heart, a physician may elect to compare images of the same patient at different physiological states, such as exercising state, rest state, emotional state, and so forth. Next, the physician may elect to examine previous images (past histories) followed by checking images from other modalities. The present inventors recognize that image information systems for medical use, for example, can be improved by providing an active image information system capable of monitoring a physicians examination requirements, to provide the image information to a physician immediately subsequent to an examination step, without requiring the physician to retrieve such image information with explicit queries and convert and highlight the images to meet the physicians needs. In other words, the present inventors recognize that image information systems can be improved for various applications, if the images are enhanced with a knowledge structure, whereby the related image information is automatically moved into proper local working storage or memory banks, and the related data automatically pre-processed into appropriate representations, for display immediately at the time required by a user.